D Online Presence

[Walter Bright]

nick wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> What's wrong with www.digitalmars.com/d/ as an official site?
> Do you mean the domain name or the site itself?

The name. I poked around with some other names, but they're either 
already taken or just aren't that good.

> I suppose the best
> domain name would be www.d.org but I'm sure it's taken;
> digitalmars.com/d is good enough as it is a top hit on google already.
> 
> The site itself looks a bit outdated(layout/style-wise); thus my effort
> with the new layout.

I understand, and I agree it can be improved. But I do like the spare, 
utilitarian look & feel.

> In addition, it would be nice if you hosted a wiki
> there(there are many options here, Mediawiki isn't necessarily the best
> choice).

I haven't done so already because of the numerous existing D wiki's.

> Finally, I think the front page for the official D website could borrow
> some ideas from here: http://rubyonrails.org/
> Specifically, I the big 4 todo items.

Some ideas, ok, but I don't like the look & feel of it. Too much 
whitespace, too little content, doesn't adjust to the screen size. Your 
template is much better.


>>> http://hcoop.net/~natamas/d/template.html (improvements pending)
>> This shows a lot of promise. A couple nits:
>>
>> 1) is it does not adjust when the window size is changed.
> I will create a stylesheet that resizes the layout with window size.
> 
> At the moment, the width is locked on purpose. It prevents people from
> making the site too wide and resulting in a difficult read (the ideal
> width for reading is 60-80 characters/line).

It's a lot harder to read when one has to use the scroll bar to read 
every line. Some readers don't have the option of setting the ideal 
width, and some readers might want the D reference manual in a smaller 
window so they have room for their code. The user should control the 
width, not the site designer.

> You can change the size of
> the site by changing the font size(Ctrl-wheel or Ctrl-0/-/+ in firefox).

True, but this is asking too much. People are used to controlling the 
size by dragging the window border, not the font.

>> 2) it uses javascript to change the look when a mouse is over something,
>> can the style sheet 'hover' thing be used instead?
> It doesn't, actually. It uses hover to change the appearance. It uses
> javascript to disable an outline that firefox draws around the tabs when
> you click on them. It is somewhat of a hack, which can easily be removed.

Ok, I just think that the use of javascript should be minimized, because 
many have js disabled for security reasons. Yes, I know the current 
pages use a bit of js for the search box and the google ads.